So I have a rather uncommon name. It turns out there’s someone on Facebook with that name (it is, in fact, in the top five results on Google for my name in quotes, when all the other hits are me). Even “better,” there are people on this other me’s friends list that I actually know (including one childhood friend that I haven’t seen or spoken to in literal decades), and it’s pretty clear to me they friended him thinking he is me. (My name is such that this would not be an unreasonable thing at all, IMO.)
I had someone I know who’s actually on Facebook (I am not) check out his profile to see if there was anything outrageously embarrassing that would reflect poorly on me should anyone else mistake him for me. Nothing too bad was found, but again, that was in this one person’s opinion, obviously.
How should all this affect my decision to join Facebook, if at all? I have to admit, I am kind of interested in what the old friend is doing these days, though I don’t have the desire to “hook up with” everyone who mistakenly friended this other guy (to put it mildly). Thoughts, anyone?
I think there’s no reason not to contact this guy, if you want to. For one thing, if these acquaintances of yours have already friended “you”, they’re not going to go looking for your name again. So they might not ever find your real profile, anyway. If you contact only the people you’re interested in talking to, the rest will likely be none the wiser (unless the people you contact are friends with them). What you’ve got there is an annoying-people decoy. Wish I had one.
Besides, the fact that none of these people, including your doppelganger, has realized the mistake means that they’re probably not doing a hell of a lot of interacting, so even if they did eventually try to friend you, and you felt you just had to accept (you can always just ignore the request), I’m guessing you wouldn’t hear from them much.
And of course, you can always do what I did - get in touch with the people you’re interested in, and then move the communication to email and ignore facebook.
Doesn’t he have photos up or info that makes it clear he is not you? I can understand if he kind of looks like you and someone hasn’t seen you for decades, but most people know where their friend graduated high school, or the city they live in, for example. I can’t imagine many people would search on a name and just assume the result is the one they want without checking out their profile first?
I typically find whenever doing a people search on Facebook that no matter how rare the name might seem there are always at least a handful of people with that name.
If you haven’t seen that person in decades and are not sure where they reside it’s pretty hard to tell which one is the one you’re looking for.
Maybe your childhood friend took a risk and decided to friend everyone with your name and the guy unknowingly accepted?
As far as I know, I am the only person in the world with my name so it is incredibly easy for people to find me. However, I have several ‘friends’ on Facebook that I have no idea whatsoever who they are. I didn’t want to be rude by refusing their invitation and their location seemed reasonable for where I grew up. I get a little spooked when they send me game and cause requests though but luckily none of them have written me in detail.
To do this, I would actually have to join Facebook, yes?
And to clarify, I obviously cannot be 100% sure that this guy is who I think he is. But the coincidence of someone with that name friending someone with my name is pretty significant to me.
There’s also the question (implied, but not outright stated in my OP) of whether I should join solely to make sure my reputation isn’t sullied by something the other me might put in his profile one day. Reasonable concern or not?
ETA: Velma: No idea what’s in the profile. I believe the current public photo he has right now is of his dog.
I don’t think you need to worry about it too much.
Let’s say your name is John Weirdlastname, and that the other John Weirdlastname is a total nutball posting crazy stuff on facebook about how the Russians are going to invade and steal our precious bodily fluids.
If I look up John Weirdlastname on facebook and he has whatever privacy things set up so only friends see his page, then I just get the message “John only shares certain information with everyone. If you know John, add him as a friend on Facebook.” I can’t see his page, I don’t know if I found the right John, and I can’t see anything crazy on his page, so his craziness isn’t ruining your reputation.
But if he doesn’t have all the privacy stuff set up and anyone can see his page, then I’ll see his page and his crazy Russian rantings, but I’ll also see a bigger picture of him, and his hometown, his college, his profession, whether he’s married, or whatever other stuff he has posted. So, if I know you at all, I can tell that there must be more than one John Weirdlastname, and this is someone other than the John Weirdlastname that I know. I hope I’m making sense.
You do make sense, but this is the part that concerns me (at least a little). I hear employers are checking out people on Facebook before they do interviews and such…
then make your name on facebook john funky middle name wierdlastname and add somehow living in windycity [i cant remember if there is a location field or not. chances are the other john does not live in the same city or state]
And if asked, point out that you are this one, and not that one. Anybody can understand that there may be someone else with the same or similar name.
I am Aruvqan as a real life nickname, I got it by researching imperial roman hunnic culture, and I really doubt that it is common in turkmenistan or any other istans as a modern name, yet I find that it has been taken in certain email and web presence functions, and it isnt me using it … <shrug> go figure. I didn’t think I was that important that people would take my name to use for their online presence.
Sure, but I was trying to figure out if I had “options” if I decided NOT to join Facebook. IE is this whole thing a good reason for me to do so if I didn’t start out with the inclination to do so anyway (true).
Because of this thread, I just joined with my name so no one else could. I have an uncommon last name, but I know there’s at least one other person in the US with the same firstname lastname.
Well, if you apply for a job, then the employer will get your resume and can see what college you went to, what jobs you had in the past, what city you currently live in, and take a rough guess at how old you are. If the HR guy for the employer understands Facebook enough to search your name and finds this other guy, I would think he would understand it enough to look at those indicators and make sure he found the right guy before making any judgements based on a Facebook page.
So unless the guy has almost no personal information on his page about himself, I wouldn’t worry.
Except Facebook is set up by default to make this sort of searching impossible. It’s scaremongering by the job search experts, nothing more.
Huh? That’s not how Facebook works at all. Real life is not like the SDMB, lots of people have the same name. Facebook uses real names, not screen names.
Yeah, there are a few dozen people on Facebook with the same first and last name as me. It really doesn’t worry me what kind of ‘reputation’ any of them have…and I would never assume even someone with an unusual name is the only one in the whole world.
I keep my profile private so people searching would have to ask to befriend me to see any info anyway. I don’t see how employers could use Facebook as a tool except for the few people that keep their info entirely public.
You might actually be surprised to see how many people don’t use their Facebook settings in such a way that hinders employers from seeing at least some information about them.